A typical finishing operation is grinding and it is known to grind gears by means of vertical axis grinding machines, in which the grinding times are relatively short in the order of tenths of seconds and, therefore, the interlocking times of the finishing machine particularly effect production times and costs.
To reduce the interlocking times, it is known from DE19857592-A1 that a grinding machine of the type described above has a working station and a loading-unloading station and comprises a rotating supply table on which two workpiece carrier spindles are mounted. The supply table cyclically transports the workpiece carrier spindles from the loading-unloading station to the working station, and vice versa. Thereby, while one gear mounted on a workpiece carrier spindle is processed at the working station, the other workpiece carrier spindle is arranged at the loading-unloading station to unload any ground gears and to load a gear to be ground.
Furthermore, in a grinding machine of the type described above, it is known to rotate and synchronize the gear to be ground with the grinding wheel outside of the working station or during the transport from the loading-unloading station to the working station. Therefore, the times for interlocking the gear to the working station are significantly reduced.
The grinding machine described above has the drawback of having to move the grinding wheel away from the table between one gear change and the other due to reasons of the volume of the table. Thus, in an interlocking system of this type, the interlocking times of the working station again significantly effect the overall grinding times, despite the synchronization of the gear with the grinding wheel.